The effect of sound therapy on the perceived stress of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy

The diagnosis of cancer creates concerns for patients, which leads to severe psychological complications. The present study was conducted with the aim of determining the effect of sound therapy on the perceived stress of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
This clinical trial study was conducted on 70 cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy at Dr. Ali Shariati Hospital in Fasa in 2018. Sampling was done by the convenience method and the samples were randomly divided into two control and test groups. The intervention group received the recitation of the Holy Quran, traditional music or heavenly prayers. The data collection tool was Cohen's Perceived Stress Questionnaire. Data analysis was done by SPSS software version 16 and using the statistical test of analysis of variance with repeated measurements along with Bonferroni's post hoc test.
The mean age of the patients in the control and test groups were 38.03±14.18 and 41.31±10.86 years respectively. There was no significant difference between the mean of stress scores in the control group patients before and after the intervention (p<0.05). But the mean of stress scores in the test group patients decreased significantly after the intervention (p<0.001). Also, after the intervention, patients in the test group had lower mean stress scores compared to the control group (p<0.001).
Based on the results of the present study, sound therapy reduced the perceived stress of patients. Therefore, this non-invasive and uncomplicated method can be easily used by the treatment team to help reduce the stress of cancer patients.